Pokemon Party

When Mr C asked for a Pokemon themed 10th Birthday Party this sent me into planning, crafting and shopping mode.
We tossed ideas around and someone suggested we set up a table and have games.
We had enough second hand cards for the boys to have a deck each, though once we started learning about the game we realised it was lacking.
He also wanted to give each guest a pokeball charm made from rainbow loom bands and a little Pokemon.  He wanted his tournament to have prizes and I found a Ash Ketchum hat cheap so he was over the moon.
Due to the amount of cards needed to play 2 games at once and the time involved in each game we had to cap numbers.
After making 2 game boards and buying more cards cheaply I discovered there are starter sets.  You can definitely tell we are new to the card game, my older kids just watched the show and weren't interested in the cards.  So I grabbed a starter set, that leaves us with a proper mat and 2 handmade, the proper tokens and 2 sets of handmade.
Even with all our card purchases as I bought second hand in bulk I have pulled this all off below budget.  Also the boys used their own pocket money to buy half of the cards, I just needed to boost the supplies.

 Water themed game board.

 Fire themed game board.





































 First Prize for our mini tournament I scored for $5.98.
The boys love it.

Second and Third place holders with get one of these cuties.

Treat Bags Supplies.

The treat bags will be low on sugary treats as Mr E has Dental Hypoplasia so I have to consider him.

I used this tutorial from Made by Mommy to make pokeball charms.  Making enough was a great way to get some hand therapy in for myself and the boys.

































I scored 24 little pokemon figurines at a bargain price, depending on how many guests we have they will each get at least 1 possibly 3.





















In addition to the cards the boys bought and I bought a bulk lot off ebay and a bulk lot of very worn cards from a local shop that does trades.
I sorted through the boys cards and the extra cards and pulled out the multiples.
Party guests will get 3 cards each in their loot bags.

White paper lanterns that my daughter and I painted the top half red and then put masking tape I coloured black with a permanent marker around the middle.

Yellow printer paper with Pikachu colouring in printables printed on it and cut out to form a banner.

Game table all set up waiting for party guests.

Loot Bags









Each loot bag had a twirl, fredo, pokeball charm, 2 pokemon figures and 3 pokemon cards.

Cake made by my lovely friend Shirlee, unfortunately we were having a very humid day and the figurines she made from fondant collapsed so she replaced them with a toy pokeball and a pikachu she got from the shop, still a awesome cake for my little Pokemon Trainer.




Apart from food I have only spent $75 on this party, that is including decorations, supplies for invites, prizes, extra cards and items for the treat bags.
I was going to bake and create all kinds of themed food but hubby was on a pretty nasty roster in the lead up and after the party and the day of the party was his only day off so with food I went the easy way and just put out chips, store bought muffins, etc.
The kids had a blast, most want to come over regularly and play pokemon, due to time constraints we couldn't play full games so had mini rounds of 20mins and then as time grew short sudden death (first to inflict damage).  Our final it was clear one young boy wanted his friend to win, he had the chance to inflict damage on multiple occasions and didn't take it and when he finally did he gave first prize to his friend.
As for the loot bags they were a hit with all but 1 child but you can't please everyone.

Pokeball Birthday Invites

Mr C has a 10th Birthday coming up and Pokemon has become a big thing he and his brother and their friends are into.  When asked what he wanted his 10th Birthday to be he said Pokemon and well Trainers do get their first Pokemon at 10 so this fits perfectly.
I will do a follow up post on Party supplies but as I had to make a extra invite I took photos of each step (sorry 2 are blurry) as some had asked to see the process.

You need Thin Black Tape.
I did not have enough thin black masking tape in my stash so I tore off minimum 9inch long strips of plain masking tape, stuck them onto my nonstick craftsheet and coloured the stripes black with a permanent marker.
I recommend this as first step to ensure fully dry when applying.

When doing my first 10 I just cut 4inch wide strips of white and red cardstock but for this extra I just cut 4inch squares.
When doing the longer pieces in half lengthways so you have a 2 inch wide strip.







You want the narrowest part of your circle to be the folded edge.
I used my old Creative Memories Custom Cutting sytem with the blade and circle that results in a 4 inch Circle, if you don't have this you could use a 4inch Circle Die.

This cardstock was very thick so when folded in half my blade could only cut one layer at a time, the white was thinner so I didn't need to flip the excess up like this for White.

Repeat these steps with white for how many Pokeball invites you are making.

Red half, White half, White 4 inch circle to add stability, details printed and cut to a 4 inch circle.

You will need a 1.5inch black circle and a 1inch white circle for the button.

 Using my Fiskars 12 inch trimmer I cut each peace of masking tape in half length ways.
I did this 1 at a time assembling each invite as I went as when pealing up off the trimmer it would curl.





This was the easiest way to get the seem right.
I stuck a end of the tap down so the sticky side was up and placed the red, followed by the white, then I folded over the tape.

For the red and white edge that is the opening I tore the other half of the masking tape in half and placed it sticky side up.

 I folded it over the edge and trimmed.

 A pic of the inside before adding the 4 inch circle of white cardstock that is for stability

 With text glued in (sorry markers are covering personal details).

8 of the 11 made.

Pocket Raspberry Finsbury as my wallet and mini schedule.

My planner/EDS friend Toni gave me this lovely Pocket Raspberry Finsbury to use as my wallet and I love it.
I don't change dividers or charms in this as well it lives in my bag.

Here are some photos of my set up.


Best wallet I have every had as I can customise it to my needs.





















Hand covering license.
Sorry taking on the go lol.
Card slots have my card to my account for groceries/getting each weeks cash out and my carers card (though very few places where I live honour this card sadly).
Pocket behind card slots has stamps and postal receipts for tracking purposes, these receipts get binned when I know the person has received their item.

Cut down collector card inserts to make reward card storage.
They are staggered to avoid bulk.
8 in total pockets in total holding 14 cards

Showing a old week.
WO2 for schedule with minimal detail as I don't take my planner out any more due to pain levels but still need to be able to schedule stuff.

Second divider for my notes section.
At back of notes I have a fly leaf, behind it is 1 sheet of address paper to record contact info if I need to.

Clear filofax pocket on left for vouchers.
Upcycled paperclip packaging for envelop budget.
I have 3 of these (groceries, fuel, kids).

Zipper pocket is for money to spend on me (has been empty for some time lol).

Receipts in back.

My Fauxdori Uni Planner

For my first Semester at Uni I just had a section in my main planner (my A5 Finsbury) but a bargain buy of a A5 Fauxdori came to my attention and someone suggested (sorry I can't remember who) that it would be great for Uni.
A notebook per subject was suggested and I love this idea for when I get to the more intensive note taking subjects.
So here is my work in progress set up so far.

 My $15 Fauxdori, I don't have a pen loop for it yet so the elastic is holding my pens.
I decided I want to take colourful notes so I selected a cheap 4 colour pen with my favourite colour in and the Orange Frixion I got in a RAK and I don't use Orange in my colour code very often.

 This handy writers wheel (I think that is what it is called) is paper clipped to my home made flyleaf.
Note as everything was in a filofax I had to stick things together to fit in my dori.

On the back of my Writers Wheel is a sticky note with info I need on hand for Uni.
On the right is a card holder from my A5 filofax it has my student ID and local Library card (thinking I will put washi samples in the empty pockets.
Pink sticky notes are covering personal info, blue and white are a small pile stuck to empty pockets until I get a dashboard happening.

Back of A5 filofax card insert (not this is stuck with packing tape to a filofax A5 top opening pocket).
Pink sticky notes are a little stack.
On right is a cheap Collect & Co notebook from Big W that I covered with paper that was more me.
I couldn't afford proper books and couldn't make them myself due to my hand.

The other Collect & Co book (2 A5 for $2).
I love the layout of their pages but I will be covering the logo on each page with a sticker.

A5 filofax top opening pocket.
It is home to index cards for studying, paperwork from Uni, the single page of notes I made in my first subject and a letter for Uni.

On the right is the recycled/upcycled A4 page protector that I made a A5 when it was torn.
In my first subject we covered assessing websites for reliability and I saved the documents for assessing it and keep them here for reference.

Portable Homework Station

Sorry it has been a while since I have posted, the school holidays, Christmas and back to school were rather chaotic here.
Recently I used a Excel Spreadsheet to map out the boys and my days.  I put everything in they and I need to do and realised something I had already known but the visual helped confirm, if the boys do everything they are meant to every day then especially on the days we have Physio, Swimming & Band Practice that they don't have any free time, any down time, hence why we miss doing things that should be done on these days.
So here is my solution, a Portable Homework Station this means the child not involved in a appointment or activity can get their homework done so that when we get home there is one less thing to do.

 

There old Wiggle Bag is getting some use as it fits everything except my laptop, I will be taking my laptop when possible also .

 At the time I took the picks my Grade 5 child had lost his homework folder so his homework is loose, he has now found it.
So inside we have a lap desk, my Grade 3's homework folder, my Grade 5's homework and a pencil case.

Front pocket of the pencil case has the boys pencil grips (my Grade 5 boy has lost his so I have to buy another), assorted sticky notes, glue stick, eraser and pencil sharpener.

 The large pocket of the pencil case has highlighters, ruler, chunky coloured pencils (so they don't have to constantly change their grip over) and grey leads.

This is what is in my Grade 3's homework folder.
The Grade 3's at my son's school use a A3 mesh case as their homework folder and the grade 5's use a red polypick envelope.

My first Art Journal Page

I know that the next subject I will do in my Diploma involves keeping a Journal which is something I have always struggled with.
Even journalling in my scrapping is something I struggle with.
It was ingrained in as a teen and young adult to not record my hope and dreams, my feelings, events, etc as some may read it and there could be consequences.
I feel it is important I overcome this as reading through old journals are great when you are older, or for your kids when you are old, ill or gone.  Downer but true.
I feel journalling is as important as photos if not more but I just can't do it.
Last year I started looking at Art Journalling but didn't venture into it.
This year I have jumped in I have joined Documented Life Project 2015 that is through Art Of The 5th and Journal Journey 2015 Driver Reviver.
I have used the prompts/challenges/techniques from both to create my first page.


One of the prompts from Documented Life was book paper, at first I couldn't find the old damaged book I had set aside in my craft area (things have been moved around a lot over Christmas), so I thought thank goodness I haven't recycled the boys old school books yet.
I sorted them into various piles of usefulness and decided the boys should join me on this journey.

So I decided to upcycle books that either had not been used or only had a couple of pages used (they stick a lot of things in their books at school so ones with lots of things already stuck in wouldn't work).
I glued the books together and my next step is to glue 2 pages at a time together to give them a thicker surface, then they can gesso and start creating.
I have used a mix of Year, 1, Year 2 and Year 3/4 books, the lines aren't important as they will be covered. 
I wont be creating a cover until later in the year as I want to be sure they won't need a fourth book added.
I keep books from the year before for them to use up any left over pages for their Occupational Therapy.  C's 3/4 books from the last 2 years will be used by Enow as C is going to need Year 5.  E used C's old Year 2 books last year.  No idea why Year 1 were still in their collection.



The first technique for Journal Journey Driver Reviver involved Crayon Resist and the prompt was White with 2.
Here are the tags created used this, I wasn't happy with the one on the left so used the same stamps again but then loved my first one.






Following the book paper prompt I used part of E's homework from one week last year, some paper from a Year 1 book, paper from a damaged book, part of the Australian School Holidays section of a 2015 diary, part of a personal information page from filofax inserts, the word List from my November To Do List and Music score paper from my daughter's book she composes in (I couldn't bring myself to tear anything out she had written on).











I added a larger version of the Journal Journey Driver Reviver prompt to my Documented Life prompt, using the same colours as my tags as I intended to use a tag on this page.
I had difficulty inking directly onto the page.















I added my tag, some coordinating washi and my Goals (the other prompt from Documented Life) and was calling this finished.

















But I felt it needed bling so I added some bling to it.


















This was so much fun and very therapeutic.
I used to think I wasn't creative or artistic until I found scrapping but even then with the use of tools discovering I was creative I didn't think I could call myself artistic since I can't draw (due to my hand issues) but through this I am starting to realise it doesn't matter that I can barely draw a stick figure we all have a artist inside us we just have to find a way to let that artist out.
If you have never tried this, give it a go, just play and create and enjoy yourself.